No E-mail Day?

What would you say about having a “No e-mail day?” What would you do in place of it?

Intel is the first company to implement this day for its employees. The UK office started this “No e-mail day” as a way to get its employees, especially engineers, to talk with each other face to face each and every Friday. E-mail is strictly prohibited and is enforced. They can use any other means of communication, even picking up the phone and talking to each other.

There have been instances of where employees that sit a few cubicles away from each other prefer to e-mail rather than walk over or call the other on the phone. This actually happens quite a bit at my workplace as well.

Some employees that are right across from each other, where a filing cabinet is placed between them, prefer to e-mail or call each other on the phone. Yet it only takes literally 2 seconds to get up from your desk, which is good for your body to get some stretches every so often, and walk over.

I can understand that certain items need to be handled via e-mail, so you have a record of the matter, but if it’s something that doesn’t need to be recorded, such as asking the person where they would like to have lunch or how their weekend went.

E-mail can be a productivity drainer, since you have to write messages back and forth so many times, yet if you call or talk to the person face to face, the issue at hand can be resolved much faster.

Try to find other ways to communicate with your fellow staff members and see how much better it feels to hear a voice or see a face when you do it.

Here are some more articles on e-mailing and productivity, for your reading pleasure.

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Until next time,

Take care - of your clutter!